Ex-NKorean spy meets relatives of Japan abductee

/ AP

A teary Kim Hyon-hui, right, a former North Korean agent convicted of planting a bomb on a South Korean airliner in 1987, is consoled by Koichiro Iizuka, son of Taeko Taguchi who's one of more than a dozen Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean agents decades ago, during their meeting at the Bexco in Busan, South Korea, Wednesday, March 11, 2009. (AP Photo/Yonhap, Oh Su-hee)

A teary Kim Hyon-hui, right, a former North Korean agent convicted of planting a bomb on a South Korean airliner in 1987, is consoled by Koichiro Iizuka, son of Taeko Taguchi who's one of more than a dozen Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean agents decades ago, during their meeting at the Bexco in Busan, South Korea, Wednesday, March 11, 2009. (AP Photo/Yonhap, Oh Su-hee) (/ AP)

HYUNG-JIN KIM, The Associated Press

A tearful former North Korean agent met Wednesday with relatives of a Japanese woman abducted to the North decades ago, saying she knew the abductee as her language teacher and does not believe Pyongyang's account of her death.

Kim Hyon-hui – convicted of bombing a Korean Air jet in a 1987 act of sabotage that killed all 115 people aboard – claims her spy training included coaching on Japanese language and culture by Yaeko Taguchi, who vanished in Tokyo in 1978.

In 2002, North Korea admitted to abducting Taguchi and 12 other Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s and using them to train spies. North Korean officials allowed five of them to return to Japan, saying the other eight had died, including Taguchi, who they said was killed in a 1986 car accident.

Tokyo, however, has demanded proof of their deaths and an investigation into other suspected kidnappings.

Taguchi's relatives said they had new hope she was alive after Wednesday's emotional meeting, amid heavy security, which was arranged after Kim recently expressed her desire to see Taguchi's brother and son to let them know how she lived in the North after her abduction.

Kim hugged Taguchi's now 32-year-old son, Koichiro Iizuka, as they appeared before journalists. Iizuka was 1 year old when his mother was abducted. He was later adopted by Shigeo lizuka, Taguchi's now 70-year-old brother.

Kim wiped away tears with her hands and handkerchief and bowed several times to the two men. The three then went into a closed-door meeting after a brief photo session at a convention center in the southeastern South Korean city of Busan.

Police commandos escorted Kim to the venue, fearing she could be targeted by anti-North Korea citizens and bereaved families of bombing victims.

Kim told reporters later that she was "very happy" and "moved" to see Taguchi's son, adding he "is very handsome and resembles his mother a lot."

Kim disputed the North's claim of Taguchi's 1986 death, saying she had heard the following year that Taguchi had moved to another place in North Korea. She said in a recent media interview that she believes Taguchi is alive, and that the North may fear that allowing her back home would reveal details of the country's spy training.

"I think how great it would be if Taguchi could be here with us together," she said in a low, soft voice.

Taguchi's son said the meeting had given him new hope.

"I got the conviction that Taguchi, my mother, is alive," he said, adding that he will intensify efforts to get her back home. Taguchi was 22 when she disappeared.

Kim, 47, was sentenced to death in South Korea for the airliner bombing but was later pardoned on the grounds that she was duped by the North's communist regime trying to disrupt the 1988 Seoul Olympics and that she repented her crime.

Kim has told investigators that she and a male North Korean agent, posing as a Japanese father and daughter, boarded Korean Air Flight 858 from Baghdad to Seoul on Nov. 28, 1987. They planted a time-bomb on the plane after getting off in Abu Dhabi, a refueling stop.

The next day, the Boeing 707 plane exploded over the Andaman Sea near Burma, now Myanmar, according to a South Korean investigation.

Kim and her accomplice were arrested two days later in Bahrain, where they were trying to get a flight to Rome. The pair attempted to kill themselves by taking cyanide concealed in cigarette filters. The man died, but Kim recovered and was extradited to Seoul.

Kim has said she was ordered to bomb the plane by Kim Jong Il, the country's current leader but then the heir of national founder Kim Il Sung. The younger Kim took power following his father's death in 1994.

North Korea has denied involvement in the bombing but the incident prompted the United States to include the country in its list of terrorism-sponsoring countries.

The terrorism blacklist was a key thorn in ties between the two countries, until the U.S. delisted the North last year to help salvage an international deal on the North's nuclear disarmament.

North Korea has said Taguchi married Tadaaki Hara, another Japanese abductee, in 1984. The North also said Taguchi died in the car accident after her husband died of an illness.

Kim later married a South Korean intelligence officer who investigated her and has written several best-selling books. She had lived in seclusion for many years until recent months.